Elijah Porter
"QUOTE" Elijah Gabriel Porter is an NPC in the Mental campaign. He was introduced in Ghosts of the Past (S01) and became a major character that same episode. Elijah is a shy, mild-mannered investigator with a love of mechanical things and photography. He is a good man with a lot of courage who has overcome his dark side to become the man he needs to be. He is the husband of Erica Porter. Personality Elijah is a sweet, kind young werewolf hailing from the frozen north of Alaska. He is trusting and polite, and tends toward being optimistic. Soft-spoken with the tendency to see the best in people, Elijah is level-headed and calm, keeping his cool and emotions in check. However, he has a temper that he must work to keep in check, especially when his friend's safety comes into question. Elijah has an a certain nobility and a sense of honor and he places a high value on his relationships. He would never do anything to cross or betray those he cares about in order to get what he wants, even if that means he loses in the end. An example of this quality can be seen with his love for Erica. Despite how deeply he loved her, he never confessed or tried to win her heart because of her relationship with Sam Hudson, Elijah's best friend. It is this fierce loyalty to those he cares about that drives him to be willing to fight and even die to protect them. Though a part of this mindset comes from his natural pack affinity derived from his lycanthropy, it is mostly due to the fact that Elijah is selfless and naturally protective of those he loves. Possessing a gentle, empathetic heart, he is always there for his friends, especially Erica. He is always the first to offer a helping hand or an encouraging word when those around him need it. He is very responsible and something of a neat freak, and during his travels with the group he often acted as "den mother": cooking for and cleaning up after his friends. As he and Erica settle into domestic life, he has become the head of the house, paying the bills and budgeting their money, as well as handling the shopping, cooking, cleaning, sewing, organizing and the myriad of other chores necessary to take care of the house and his family. Before he met Erica and her friends, Elijah had a hard time getting to know people due to his social anxiety. He found that the only way he could connect to society is through the lens of his camera and photography has been a passion of his since childhood. His writing also served as an outlet for his anxiety. Elijah is hugely talented as a photog and he is almost never without his camera. Since the events of the Battle of Salem, Elijah has since started a blog to document his often strange life and it's gathered something of a small following. During his spent in Victorian England, Elijah found his camera would not work due to the strange, cosmic laws governing time travel. This, coupled with the limited amount of writing supplies in the Victorian era, Elijah was forced to cope with his issues and move on in order to better contribute to protecting his friends and working to get them home. Today, Elijah is still a neurotic bundle of nerves and while he can still be a little awkward, he's much more confident than he used to be. As a result, Elijah is slowly finding it easier to interact and connect with others. While he didn't have many friends before joining Erica in the war against Clive, Elijah has since become a part of the big family of friends and allies Erica has built up and seemingly added to wherever she went. He was once the new guy who struggled to find acceptance among Erica's little group of monster hunters. Today, he has become a respected and well-liked senior member of the team. His friends and teammates value his opinions and his insight is often utilized during the planning stages of any operation. Additionally, his deep capacity for empathy that come from his lycanthropy, combined with his gentle and kind nature make him a good leader. He loves the family of his team, and he sees them as a sort of Pack for him to belong to. For the first time, he has found real acceptance. More recently, he's found more of an actual family in Erica and his adoptive son, Bruce. He is working hard to protect and provide for his new family and he has honestly never been happier. Elijah has a very strong conscience and a deep sense of morality, with clear sets of right and wrong. He detests killing and will try to find other ways to resolve a intuition without resorting to taking a life. He feels surprisingly guilty about Sam's death and his role in the death of his friend at his hand that triggered his lycanthropy. He hates his lycanthropy, viewing it like a curse despite the power it has given him. He hates transforming into the wolf, especially what he does when he's in that form: the violence, murder and eating of human flesh. It makes him ashamed and nauseous to think about. Although he is willing to undergo a transformation when he absolutely has to, he will generally avoid it unless he has no other choice. While he has mastered his transformation, he can still sometimes turn against his will if he becomes enraged enough, though this has only happened a few times since joining Erica's army. Despite his reluctance to resort to violence, Elijah is an efficient fighter. Fast and agile, Elijah is able to jump, dodge, roll, weave and lash out with lightning-fast efficiency and enhanced lycanthrope strength. He tries to non-lethally disable opponents when he can. He tends to either fight with his hands or with objects close at hand, such as table legs. He also utilizes terrain, jumping, perching, swinging and rolling at his foes, using whatever he can find to his advantage. While he isn't formally trained in hand-to-hand combat, his natural werewolf strength makes him a formidable foe. He is also trained in fencing and archery, due to college and the Royal Rangers (respectively). His wolf form is much more brutal, however; clawing, tearing, ripping and biting his enemies into dismembered piles of mush. Elijah is also very skilled at wilderness survival and travel, and of the three that went back in time, Elijah was the best suited for life in that time (despite his dislike of actually living in the time period). He is also a history enthusiast and has read a considerable amount of nonfiction works concerning the history of the world. He is a fan of Fantasy fiction, and has recently become a fan of comic book superheroes, mostly due to Erica and Sam's passion and enthusiasm for the genre. All in all, Elijah is a shy, courageous man who is willing to put aside his own happiness and well being in order to keep his friends--and most importantly, Erica--safe another day. History Elijah was born in Anchorage, Alaska, the youngest son of Desmond and Linda Porter. His mother was a private pilot and Desmond a computer security system analyst at a prestigious technology firm in Anchorage. From a young age, Elijah was very quiet and didn't have a lot of friends. He proved to be quite imaginative, pretending his back yard was a vast kingdom that he could explore and have adventures in. He'd climb trees, perch on chain-link fences, climb the drainage pipes and hide in his "fort", aka, the tool shed in the back yard. The family jacuzzi became a roiling ocean for his brother's hand-me-down GI Joes and every car ride was a space shuttle to some distant planet. While he was fairly close to his older siblings, Elijah lived in a world all his own. This was further driven by the fact that he was home-schooled. He continually showed an avid interest in photography, playing with his brother's polaroid camera constantly and taking pictures of anything and everything he found. He would often put the pictures in a shoe box under his bed. For his ninth birthday, his siblings pitched in to buy him a polaroid of his very own. Before long, Elijah's wall was covered in polaroids held up by push-pins. Just before he turned ten, his father accepted a job in Portland, Oregon as a Data Manager and Head of Research & Development for the prestigious pharmaceutical giant, the Hoffman Institute. The job required him to fly to Oregon for two weeks at a time, a move that would serve to divide the family: Thomas moved to Portland for school, Barbara became estranged from her father and Elijah was caught somewhere in the middle. When he was thirteen, his parents divorced and custody of him was granted to Linda. Of all the Porter children, Elijah took the split hardest and he was never quite able to convince himself he wasn't to blame. He rarely spoke with his father after that and visits were even rarer. By the time his parents split, Elijah was the only child left living at home. He grew closer to his mother during this time as he continued to be sadly estranged from the rest of his family (though visits from Babs were still regular). For his 14th birthday, his mother gave him a professional-grade camera. Elijah took it everywhere, taking pictures every day and developing several rolls at once every other week. At 15, he was taken out of home school and enrolled in Dimond High School in Anchorage. He laid low and due to his social anxiety he made few friends and was known as the "weird kid" in his class. He quickly signed on for the school paper as a writer and photog, however. During this time, he developed a large crush on a girl in his class named Winona Spengler. For a year, he lived a quiet life, apart from the rest of the world and he likely would have gone on living an unremarkable life. But then everything changed. During his sophomore year, on his way home from school band practice, the weather was really bad and it was near white-out conditions. Unable to see, he skid through a stop sign and ran into a much smaller car. The driver was killed in the accident and Elijah was forced to serve community service and a short time in a youth detention program for juvenile manslaughter. Elijah was understandably depressed and devastated during this time. Which, of course, was when things went from bad to worse. Two weeks after the incident, Elijah involuntarily transformed into a human/wolf hybrid in the light of the full moon and he went on a rampage through his neighborhood. That night, he killed three dogs, a moose, a jogger and caused no fewer than two auto accidents. The morning after, Elijah woke up in the forested Hilltop area, nearly frozen to death. In the weeks after, Elijah found he was stronger, faster and more durable than he used to be. But the most noticeable difference was that his senses were greatly heightened: his hearing operated on superhuman levels, he could see in almost any light, and he could smell in a way that he had never thought possible; he could differentiate scents on a supremely deep level, to the point that he could distinguish between the scents of others. Wracked with guilt and filled with shame and fear, Elijah began to withdraw from everyone around him, even his mother. He chained himself in the basement every full moon. One night, he broke out and would have killed his mother had she not known about the curse. It was her curse, too. She subdued Elijah's wolf form and the next day began to teaching him how to control it, how to cope with the changes. How to focus his perception to manageable levels. With her guidance, he learned to control the changes and was able to refrain from turning during full moons. Near the end of his junior year, Elijah revealed that he was a werewolf to Winona Spengler, who reacted with panic. Her brother attacked Elijah in rage, stringing him up and bringing him down with silver bullets. Elijah would have been killed had he not been saved by his mother. Elijah does not know how, but she was able to convince everybody involved not to talk about Elijah's curse. While he lived in fear, nothing every came of it and nobody spoke of it again. During his senior year of high school, Elijah joined the track team and began exercising regularly so he could be strong enough should anybody else find out his secret. Just before graduation, Linda passed away from pneumonia. Devastated, Elijah still suffers from depression about the loss of his mother. He enrolled in the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), majoring in journalism and minoring in photography. He moved into the residence hall and had an annoying roommate, just like all college freshman. Unlike other college freshman, Elijah didn't attend parties and wasn't particularly social and aside from his studies, he was miserable there. For Christmas of 2010, Elijah received a surprise call from Desmond, who offered to fly him out to Portland for Christmas. Elijah reluctantly accepted and spent the next two weeks with his father. While things were tense, they began to reconnect as Desmond let slip small details about his job that hinted at something sinister. Just after the new year, leading into 2012, Desmond left for work and never came home. Elijah stayed in Portland instead of going back to school to find his father, exhausting the mundane channels before going to the Hoffman Institute for help. During this visit, Elijah met Odessa Nulph, a sorceress who helped him uncover a hidden laptop in his father's closet containing records of the entire Hoffman Database. Not long afterward, Elijah noticed he was being followed. While going back to Anchorage, Elijah was jumped by Hoffman agents at the Portland airport. Elijah managed to subdue them before fleeing on a bus. He managed to hitchhike through Canada to Alaska, evading the Hoffman agents who were following him, no doubt for his laptop. He laid low, couch surfing and working odd jobs while he tried to decrypt the files on his laptop until at last, he cracked the code and it was here Elijah discovered how deep the rabbit hole of the Hoffman Institute went: vampires, werewolves, dopplegangers, psychics, aliens, conspiracies and arcane, esoteric knowledge. Overwhelmed with what he had learned, Elijah needed to go for a long walk. He was attacked by more agents on the road and he evaded them, running off through the woods, unaware that he was literally about to run into the girl who would change his life forever... Notable Accomplishments *First Werewolf transformation (Thursday, February 21, 2008) *Attended two-week "Writer's Camp" in Seattle Washington (June 2009) *Received internship at Anchorage Daily News (July 2009) *Joined Erica's Army (March 2011) *Fought in the Battle of Salem (December 2012) *Married Erica (September 2013) Notable Victories *Nandur, Protean (via decapitation in wolf form) *Jasper (via decapitation) *Jack Finn (via mauling and eating him while in wolf form) *Jorogumo (via decapitation in wolf form) *Fenris (via Mjolnir) *Barry Finn Time (via Mjolnir) Relationships with Others Elijah has come a long way from being the stuttering, awkward young pup he was when he and Erica first met. While he has grown more confident, he is still a neurotic bundle of nerves. Cheerful and friendly with a quirky sense of humor, Elijah does not make friends easily but is fiercely loyal to those he loves. Like all wolves, Elijah is loyal to his "pack" and he would die for them. Elijah and Erica met through a whim of fate, literally running into her while trying to evade Hoffman agents in Alaska. She helped him by lying to an agent about whether she saw him or not, and so he saved her from the agents shortly after, leading them on a goose chase before helping Erica back to Bohlale's house. He quickly connected with her in a way that he had never connected with somebody outside of his family before. He helped save her from Clive in Anchorage after she was abducted shortly after, and along with Sam, accompanied her back in time to Victorian England. Forced to cooperate to survive, Elijah stepped up, providing a reasonable backstory for their group and acting as a sort of guide to the period during their early days there. He took it upon himself to protect Erica back in time, tailing her from afar to watch out for her when she stormed out on walks by herself (which was semi-frequent), saving her from Alberto during their first meeting and otherwise helping her cope with their situation. When they came back to the present, he continued to travel with her, protecting her from Clive and helping her kill monsters while they tried to figure out what to do next. Every time the group split up, Elijah insisted he go with her or she asked him to come with her. He leapt in to save the day in Attack the Gas Station when Jasper the Warlock was threatening to rape Erica after the battle, and he decapitated the man. The entire time, every step of the way, Elijah was at Erica's side and the two were best friends; he convinced himself that he saw her like his sister. However, things started to change. He was one of the three people Erica chose to go with her overseas and they bonded further as they traveled overseas, to Shangri-La, to find a way to obtain the legendary Spear of Destiny. He was also chosen as one of the three to enter the Temple of Fate and so joined Erica and Noah in a steam-filled cave to meditate and find an epiphany. As he tried to meditate, Elijah couldn't help but notice how beautiful Erica was and before long has the startling realization that he was, in fact, in love with her and always had been. This realization helped Elijah come to terms with his own repressed feelings and gave him the drive to do what he needed to do during the FInal Battle. He loves Erica purely and honestly. She is the best person he's ever met: kind, generous, sweet, funny, smart and stunningly beautiful. In fact, she is his perfect idea of a woman and he loves her so bad that it became difficult to be around her without his heart being ripped apart. To be honest, he was willing to sacrifice himself in order to save her during the Final Battle so her baby son could grow up with his mother. Elijah did survive the fight, although Sam did not. To make up for his failure to protect them, Elijah moved in with Erica in order to help her take care of baby Bruce. He was great with the baby, and he is a natural parent, and his responsible attitude and natural, empathetic connection with Erica eventually drove them together romantically. The two recently started dating and despite the horror and tragedy he and Erica have gone through, Elijah has never been happier due to the love they share and the relative domestic bliss they share. He loves Erica with all of his heart and wants nothing more than to make her and her baby happy. He goes out of his way for them all the time, and he is well on his way to being the man and parent he needs to be. Furthermore, Elijah has recently developed a Werewolf imprint on Erica, meaning the wolf accepts her completely as its mate, as well. This has caused his already considerable love for her deepen and grow. Powers and Abilities Elijah is a true lycanthrope, specifically a Werewolf, which gives him a series of supernatural abilities, in addition to mundane training: *'Archery:' Elijah learned how to shoot a bow & arrow effectively during his time in the Royal Rangers. *'Cooking:' While not trained, Elijah is an able cook with experience making many dishes. As of 2013, Elijah is very talented and intuitive as a chef, doing most of the cooking for the group and his household. *'Enhanced Strength:' Elijah possesses enhanced levels of strength. While transformed, his strength reaches superhuman levels. *'Enhanced Speed:' Elijah is much faster than your standard human, able to outrun most professional athletes, but he is not supernaturally fast, like a vampire. His speed increases during transformations. *'Enhanced Durability:' Elijah is able to shrug off wounds and injuries that would cripple a human. In addition, his injuries heal much quicker than a human's. *'Fencing:' Elijah took classes in the art of fencing, which he calls the "gentleman's sword fighting", at UAA. *'Investigative:' While not as good as Erica, Elijah has been trained in the art of observation and deduction. He is also able to create a profile of a suspect based on basic information by eyewitnesses. *'Linguist:' Elijah is fluent in Norwegian. *'Music:' Elijah has received formal training at playing the trombone, though he has not done so in several years. *'Photography:' Elijah is an expert photographer, with skill that rivals most professionals. *'Superhuman Senses:' Elijah's senses (hearing, smell, sight, and touch) are enhanced to truly superhuman levels. For example, he is able to determine if somebody is lying by listening to subtle fluctuations in heartbeats and smelling the fear pheromone. He is also able to see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim lighting. *'Transformation:' Elijah is a true werewolf, which gives him the ability to assume an "animal form" at will. This form resembles a humanoid/wolf hybrid with a wolf-like snout, yellow eyes and razor-sharp claws that stands over eight feet tall with shaggy white hair. He is much stronger, much faster and more durable in this form. He has trained himself so that he has absolute control over the wolf while in this form. *'Wilderness Survival:' Elijah is well-versed in how to survive in nature and can tie all kinds of knots. Paraphernelia Elijah tends to carry certain things on him all the time. *'Camera:' Elijah always carries his professional-grade Nikon camera with him everywhere he goes, in addition to several rolls of film. *'Hoffman Laptop:' Elijah is never without the laptop. He doesn't want to risk losing the thing or having it stolen from him. Equipment *'Hunter's Flintlock:' After Sam died, Elijah was left the Hunter's Flintlock by him. Elijah usually carries it with him into battle should he need it. *'Psychic Paper:' This ID card looks like a passport with a blank white sheet inside. When somebody else looks at it, though, they see what they expect to see. This allows him to be able to impersonate almost anybody he sees fit. Weaknesses As a werewolf, Elijah has a number of supernatural weaknesses. *'Decapitation and Dismemberment:' While exceedingly difficult to do, Elijah will die if you remove his head, heart or other major organs. *'Doubt:' Elijah suffers from crippling self-doubt that often impedes his judgement and ability to cope with a given situation. He tends to assume the worst about himself. He has a tendency to second-guess himself. *'Guilt:' Elijah suffers from a terrible guilt complex. He beats himself up for every little mistake and languishes for every time he failed or let somebody down. He is especially vulnerable to this flaw where Erica is concerned. *'Iridum:' If a weapon made of iridium pierces Elijah's heart, it will kill him instantly. Injuries made form an iridium weapon do not heal properly and often scar, sometimes resulting in a poisoning that is lethal to a lycanthrope. *'Magic:' Elijah is vulnerable to all forms of magic and its effects. *'Psionics:' While Elijah is resistant to psychic attacks, he can still be hurt by them if the psion is powerful enough. *'Silver:' Silver is lethal to any lycanthrope. While touching it won't burn him or harm him in any obvious way, he can be killed if a weapon made of silver pierces his heart. Additionally, silver slows down his healing factor, causing wounds to heal slower which often leads to scarring. *'Wolfsbane:' This rare herb, also known as "Monkshood", can be used to hide one's scent from Elijah. It can also be used as a weapon, as touching it to his skin will burn him horribly. Wolfsbane can also be used to taint a water source, which will burn like acid. Ingesting enough of it in either flower, paste, liquid or aerosol form will incapacitate him for several hours. Notes *Elijah's Play-By actor is Andrew Garield. *Elijah has been seen or mentioned in every major campaign. Every character in every campaign can trace a connection to Elijah through their own friends in a game called Six Degrees of Elijah Porter. Trivia *Elijah is a vegan; since he has consumed human flesh in his wolf form, the thought of eating meat sickens him. In wolf form, however, this goes away. *Favorite bands are (in no particular order): Arcade Fire, Of Montreal, The Decemberists, Band of Horses, Modest Mouse, Camera Obscura, Whitestripes, Iron & Wine, Coconut Records, Noah and the Whale, Beirut, Animal Collective, Beirut, Cassiotone for the Painfully Alone, The Smiths, MGMT, Cake and Nirvana. *Elijah is an admitted hipster, though he ironically insists he did those things before hipsters claimed them. *His favorite movie is a tie between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Big Lebowski. More recently, he finds he really liked Captain America and The Avengers. *His favorite superhero is Captain America *Favorite book is a tie between The Lord of the RIngs and World War Z. *Favorite color is purple. *Favorite animal is the Penguin. Category:Werewolf Category:Erica's Army Category:Time Travelers Category:Fast Hero Category:Investigator Category:Street Fighter (Class) Category:Fathers Category:Wielder of Mjolnir Category:Denali Tribe Category:Mental Season 1 Category:Mental Season 2 Category:Mental Season 3 Category:Mental Season 4 Category:Urban Arcana Season 2 Category:Mental Category:Urban Arcana Category:Native of the Material Plane Category:Neutral Good Characters Category:Characters Category:Married Characters